Calle de las Nebulosas

A nebula is an immense cloud of gas and dust drifting among the stars. Some are cradles where matter condenses until it kindles into new suns; others are the luminous trail left by a star as it dies. To those objects the street’s name refers, at the southern edge of Delicias. The street is not alone in its taste for the sky. Around it spreads a small star map traced over the asphalt: Calle de la Estrella Naos, Calle Estrella Shaula and Calle de Cástor y Pólux, the twins who give their name to the constellation of Gemini. The theme suits the district’s tallest neighbor. On the hill of Enrique Tierno Galván park stands the Madrid Planetarium, opened in 1986. The nearness of the stellar streets to the planetarium is plain on the map, though there is no record of whether the naming was chosen with it in mind.